Generally, I would say "no". Not that they shouldn't have AV, but good AV is free and maintained by the system. Additional AV isn't necessarily bad, but the cost of it is often ridiculously high and very difficult to justify. There are good AV programs out there like Webroot and Bitdefender. But Defender is good, too, and included.

AV is mostly a panacea today. It's a second line of defense, but typically only turning out to be useful at times when blatant disregard for security basics were already the cause of problems. And third party AV in the real world seems to cause more issues than it solves.

It seems that updating software daily is much more critical to systems being secure instead of trying to rely on AV.

This has always been the case, education is just leading more people to realize how many people have not patched in the past and people are more prepared to hold those not patching accountable for the risk that they put people at.

AV was super important in the era of "no security" with DOS and Windows 98, for example. AV was "the security mechanism" that you added to your system. Since the Windows NT family has security mechanisms, the role of AV has almost always been just a placebo, or nearly so.

Now I want to compare the third party setup to a bare bones windows defender setup. Our webroot protected systems get 10/10 (totally stops all ransomware tests) when testing with ransim. I guess I'll spin up a win 10 VM and see what that scores.

Now I want to compare the third party setup to a bare bones windows defender setup. Our webroot protected systems get 10/10 (totally stops all ransomware tests) when testing with ransim. I guess I'll spin up a win 10 VM and see what that scores.

Since it's simulated - I'm not sure I think it has any real value. True attacks are using both old and zero day exploits - I'm guessing very little will stop zero day exploits, the number one thing is user education and awareness.

Now I want to compare the third party setup to a bare bones windows defender setup. Our webroot protected systems get 10/10 (totally stops all ransomware tests) when testing with ransim. I guess I'll spin up a win 10 VM and see what that scores.

Since it's simulated - I'm not sure I think it has any real value. True attacks are using both old and zero day exploits - I'm guessing very little will stop zero day exploits, the number one thing is user education and awareness.

True, but I have no other way to test short of trying to get infected on purpose. And I know it's not testing the user-clicked-a-dumb-link scenario. I think the real test will be if defender freaks out when I unzip the installer (like webroot did). That shows that it is detecting something at least.

Now I want to compare the third party setup to a bare bones windows defender setup. Our webroot protected systems get 10/10 (totally stops all ransomware tests) when testing with ransim. I guess I'll spin up a win 10 VM and see what that scores.

Since it's simulated - I'm not sure I think it has any real value. True attacks are using both old and zero day exploits - I'm guessing very little will stop zero day exploits, the number one thing is user education and awareness.

I'd say it has some value, but not a ton. Middle ground. It's telling, but not definitive.

And third party AV in the real world seems to cause more issues than it solves.

This is really what it boils down to. Adding 3rd party security software to a system has to open more holes in the underlying operating system, for itself at the bare minimum. Instead of providing additional security, they increase the attack surface. Just the opposite of what your trying to do.

That's not to say they are never worth while. A centralized dashboard to manage all the computers can be well worth the cost.

Now I want to compare the third party setup to a bare bones windows defender setup. Our webroot protected systems get 10/10 (totally stops all ransomware tests) when testing with ransim. I guess I'll spin up a win 10 VM and see what that scores.

Since it's simulated - I'm not sure I think it has any real value. True attacks are using both old and zero day exploits - I'm guessing very little will stop zero day exploits, the number one thing is user education and awareness.

I'd say it has some value, but not a ton. Middle ground. It's telling, but not definitive.

really? sounds like it's little more than the eicar test. yep.. the AV detected the known pattern - yeah.. lol

And third party AV in the real world seems to cause more issues than it solves.

This is really what it boils down to. Adding 3rd party security software to a system has to open more holes in the underlying operating system, for itself at the bare minimum. Instead of providing additional security, they increase the attack surface. Just the opposite of what your trying to do.

That's not to say they are never worth while. A centralized dashboard to manage all the computers can be well worth the cost.

To what end though? If the centralized console tells you it stopped an infection - now what? do you actually review what the user was doing? I suppose if you want to read daily reports that the AV is updated - you could get that from WSUS for Windows machines, though BYOD makes that kinda hard - though not impossible.

#3 is why I like webroot. Easy central control. Can you get any kind of management console for windows defender without giving MS a bunch more money?

You can make your own, but that's the same as spending money (basically.) The nice thing about Defender is that you rarely need central control. If that's something you need, then Defender is weak today. But rarely have we found a need for that.

And third party AV in the real world seems to cause more issues than it solves.

This is really what it boils down to. Adding 3rd party security software to a system has to open more holes in the underlying operating system, for itself at the bare minimum. Instead of providing additional security, they increase the attack surface. Just the opposite of what your trying to do.

That's not to say they are never worth while. A centralized dashboard to manage all the computers can be well worth the cost.

To what end though? If the centralized console tells you it stopped an infection - now what? do you actually review what the user was doing? I suppose if you want to read daily reports that the AV is updated - you could get that from WSUS for Windows machines, though BYOD makes that kinda hard - though not impossible.

That's my take on it, that's not information that I really want people sifting through under normal circumstances.

And third party AV in the real world seems to cause more issues than it solves.

This is really what it boils down to. Adding 3rd party security software to a system has to open more holes in the underlying operating system, for itself at the bare minimum. Instead of providing additional security, they increase the attack surface. Just the opposite of what your trying to do.

That's not to say they are never worth while. A centralized dashboard to manage all the computers can be well worth the cost.

To what end though? If the centralized console tells you it stopped an infection - now what? do you actually review what the user was doing? I suppose if you want to read daily reports that the AV is updated - you could get that from WSUS for Windows machines, though BYOD makes that kinda hard - though not impossible.

That's my take on it, that's not information that I really want people sifting through under normal circumstances.

#3 is why I like webroot. Easy central control. Can you get any kind of management console for windows defender without giving MS a bunch more money?

You can make your own, but that's the same as spending money (basically.) The nice thing about Defender is that you rarely need central control. If that's something you need, then Defender is weak today. But rarely have we found a need for that.

The console is mostly to see who did something stupid so I can say "hey, don't do that shit".

And third party AV in the real world seems to cause more issues than it solves.

This is really what it boils down to. Adding 3rd party security software to a system has to open more holes in the underlying operating system, for itself at the bare minimum. Instead of providing additional security, they increase the attack surface. Just the opposite of what your trying to do.

That's not to say they are never worth while. A centralized dashboard to manage all the computers can be well worth the cost.

Once of the biggest worries I've seen with third party tools is customers (so this is more for MSPs than in house people) who want to change it up, switch vendors, go to Defender, miss their renewals, or whatever (or in the case of ESET, a malicious vendor that disabled protection to try to extort money.) Anything goes wrong, and the protection shuts off.

That was what happened to one of our customers last week (they weren't our customer when it happened.) The had Defender for free, but old tools like Sophos and Kaspersky had disabled Defender and were actively removing it even after it was enabled even after they were removed. S&K ended up leaving us far more exposed than if we had never had them.

You're spending money on AV today - should you ditch it for something like KnowBe4?

I already asked about ditching it and instead spending on a patch management - and while Scott said patching is finally getting the recognition is deserves, he didn't say if people should shift their spending... and if they should - to what product do people like today?

#3 is why I like webroot. Easy central control. Can you get any kind of management console for windows defender without giving MS a bunch more money?

You can make your own, but that's the same as spending money (basically.) The nice thing about Defender is that you rarely need central control. If that's something you need, then Defender is weak today. But rarely have we found a need for that.

The console is mostly to see who did something stupid so I can say "hey, don't do that shit".

But again, I ask - to what end? it's not likely the company will fire them if they do it again, or do it 10 more times. So why waste your breath? As an IT person I want to help people be safer on the internet, etc - but I've come around to realize that unless I'm the dictator - that's simply not a priority in most companies - and I just need to LET IT GO.

@Dashrender true, but in my small environment, it's more to remind them of company policy (don't install shit until I approve it). It hasn't been a huge issue, but it helps fill in the gaps left by everyone being local admin and the lack of web filtering.

@Dashrender true, but in my small environment, it's more to remind them of company policy (don't install shit until I approve it). It hasn't been a huge issue, but it helps fill in the gaps left by everyone being local admin and the lack of web filtering.

What? How can they install something? They dont' have admin rights, right?

@Dashrender true, but in my small environment, it's more to remind them of company policy (don't install shit until I approve it). It hasn't been a huge issue, but it helps fill in the gaps left by everyone being local admin and the lack of web filtering.

What? How can they install something? They dont' have admin rights, right?

@Dashrender true, but in my small environment, it's more to remind them of company policy (don't install shit until I approve it). It hasn't been a huge issue, but it helps fill in the gaps left by everyone being local admin and the lack of web filtering.

What? How can they install something? They dont' have admin rights, right?

There are a lot of things that you can "install" (using install in the light sense) that can include ransomware, that doesn't require admin rights, as we saw at a now customer over the last few days. It was an end user account with access to the main document store that ransomed everything.

@Dashrender true, but in my small environment, it's more to remind them of company policy (don't install shit until I approve it). It hasn't been a huge issue, but it helps fill in the gaps left by everyone being local admin and the lack of web filtering.

What? How can they install something? They dont' have admin rights, right?

See bold text. And yes, I know. Beyond my control.

If you have end users acting as admins, then a powerful central AV is way more important and doing things potentially beyond standard AV functions that are making more of a difference for you.

@Dashrender true, but in my small environment, it's more to remind them of company policy (don't install shit until I approve it). It hasn't been a huge issue, but it helps fill in the gaps left by everyone being local admin and the lack of web filtering.

What? How can they install something? They dont' have admin rights, right?